Review Roundup: DEATH NOTE THE MUSICAL at the Barbican Theatre

What are critics saying about Death Note: The Musical?

WhatsOnStage

★★★★

"A triumphant, fantastical manga thriller"

Reviewer: Alun Hood

"In the cold light of day, it’s utterly preposterous, of course, but such is the world-building in Stephen Whitson’s epically stylish production and the consistency of tone in Menchell’s writing that, once you buy into the bombastic madness, this really is a terrific time in the theatre. It helps that Frank Wildhorn’s boppy, catchy music, which sometimes nods delicately to the show’s Japanese setting but mostly sounds like a James Bond soundtrack if it were written by ABBA (and if that idea doesn’t appeal to you, I doubt we could be friends) is so irresistible. A plethora of good tunes is married to incisive lyrics by Jack Murphy that know exactly how much tongue needs to be left in cheek. Death Note doesn’t look like any other musical we’ve seen, at least not in London. The slickly moving set pieces (designer: Jon Bausor), which include a revolve, whole rooms sliding into view, and a gigantic encircling frame descending from above for the gods to observe the flailing mortals below, in tandem with Akhila Krishnan’s video design, are one of the most strikingly successful examples of mixing up physical and virtual scenery I’ve yet encountered."

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The Guardian

★★★★

"Wildly popular manga mystery is a killer night out"

Reviewer: Andrew Pulver

"The adapters – Frank Wildhorn (music), Jack Murphy (lyrics) and Ivan Menchell (book) – have slimmed things down to focus on three principals: drunk-with-power schoolkid killer Light (Xander Pang), maverick but brilliant detective L (Colin Ryan) and pop princess turned lovelorn slayer Misa (Stephanie Zaharis). Light and L’s struggle to, respectively, rule like a god and head off the tide of carnage the death note triggers forms the meat of the show, and all three performers attack their roles with grade-A gusto. Telly Leung and Grace Mouat as apple-munching chaos-stirrer Ryuk and goth-bride lookalike Rem, respectively, provide top-notch support as the presiding deities. Fortunately, the whole thing starts strong, with a floodlit opening scene that combines brilliantly athletic dance moves (by a supporting company that is excellent throughout) and a schoolroom debate about the ethics of justice, and just keeps going from there – with neat forced-perspective sets, flashy back projections and amusing sliding stage elements. Death Note purists might not be completely on board with the alterations, but I would challenge anyone not to have a good time with this."

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The Times

★★★★

"Manga, murder, and high camp"

Reviewer: Kate Maltby

"As Light, Xander Pang is compelling from the off, luring us into his ever-darker inner world. (Killing a terrorist holding a nursery school hostage? Good. Murdering an entire unit of detectives because they are on his trail? Probably bad.) What makes this musical a standout, however, is the humour laced through the other performances, especially that of Colin Ryan as L, our Sherlock-esque oddball detective, and Telly Leung as the Loki-like Ryuk, Light’s cynical shinigami (a Japanese personal god of death). The joy of Death Note is that it never takes itself too seriously. These characters are high camp and utterly absurd, and they know it. (“If I sit the way other people do, my reasoning ability drops by 40 per cent,” L says, squatting on a desk, to the distraction of his co-workers.) It is just great fun.
Vocally, all perform well with Frank Wildhorn’s rock opera score, but the breakout performance comes from Grace Mouat as Rem, a rival shinigami keeping an eye on Light’s love interest. Her power ballad When Love Comes gives the audience a hairs-on-the-back-of-the-neck moment, as Rem realises she’s going to have to intervene even at the cost of her own immortality."

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Financial Times

★★★★

"Manga megahit swaggers on to the London stage"

Reviewer: Sarah Hemming

"Director Stephen Whitson tackles this high-octane thriller with great gusto and a fair sprinkling of wry self-mockery. There is propulsive choreography from Fabian Aloise and a brooding noirish set from Jon Bausor. The gods descend from on high on a huge square walkway to peer scornfully at struggling humanity below; the police are confined to boring little glass cubicles; and Tokyo’s high-rises surge up the back wall in Akhila Krishnan’s video work. Light masterminds mayhem from his (very tidy) bedroom, as the show cannily taps into the overlaps between myth, teen fantasy and video games in which players can decide who lives and who dies. Compression produces casualties. Some storylines feel undernourished and the dialogue struggles under the weight of exposition. Frank Wildhorn’s pop-rock songs pound along and Jack Murphy’s lyrics are rarely nuanced. Meanwhile, there are deeper layers of morality and psychology to explore in a story about populism, vigilante justice and disaffected youth."

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The Standard

★★

"Childish manga adaptation"

Reviewer: Nick Curtis

"There’s no psychological depth to any of the characters, no real attempt to explore the morality in the tale or its parable of populism. Wildhorn, a New York-born writer of pop hits, Broadway shows and symphonic works who has somehow become the go-to guy for musical manga adaptations, here pens a bunch of samey guitar-driven songs that lend themselves to open-mouthed yowling. Jack Murphy’s lyrics are terrible (“think of the crime I’d abate/the justice I’d instate”), but not as hackneyed as Ivan Menchell’s dialogue. It’s mounted by Whitson on a largely bare stage, with bland office sets shunted on from the sides, a gantry above patrolled by the three gods, and screens showing news reports and a rainy Tokyo skyscape. With an ensemble of 26 and a ten-strong band there’s a teeming liveliness to the evening, and a distinctive, flat, comic-book sensibility. Fabian Aloise’s choreography has striking moments but it’s a pale shadow of the movement he created for Jamie Lloyd shows including Evita and Sunset Blvd."

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The Telegraph

★

"This dire manga musical made me feel sorry for the performers"

Reviewer: Tim Robey

"As played on stage by Singaporean actor Xander Pang, he’s ostensibly our identification figure, but not for long in this emotion-free, concept-driven, crashingly hollow moral fable. Even before the interval, he’s on a manic power trip, scribbling down the names of FBI agents (in an Asian metropolis, nonsensically) who might halt his killing spree. Vigilantism – guess what? – is corrosive to the soul. It doesn’t get any subtler from there. Pitted against Kira is a mysterious hacker-detective known only as L (Colin Ryan), who gyrates wild-eyed in a baggy white sweater, crouching in chairs with knees up to his chest: he claims this improves his deductive reasoning, but the manga illustrators obviously just thought it looked cool. The “Shinigami” or “death spirit” played by Telly Leung, who pops up to Kira’s eyes only, has the vibe of Beetlejuice if he was crashing the sets of The Hunger Games, with ill-defined powers and no better tunes than anyone else."

Read the review here.

If you're interested in hearing what all the biggest theatre critics have been saying about all the newest West End shows, check out our review round-up of Cats and our review round-up of I'm Every Woman. And if you're keen to see more new shows, make sure to get up to speed on all the newest theatre openings in August.

Death Note the Musical Tickets